Coming Home
by sass41319
Summary: A one-shot post 7 x 01. Kate and Martha have a late night discussion on Castle's first night home.


**A/N apparently I am helpless in the face of the overwhelming need to write after that amazingly confusing and thought provoking premiere. enjoy **

Kate woke with a start, a soft gasp leaving her lips before she could prevent it. Wisps of images cling to her subconscious mind but she is unable to form an image of the dream that woke her. She turns quietly towards him, silently tells herself that he's there beside her, as logic dictates that he wouldn't disappear from their bed in the middle of the night but Kate's not feeling very logical these days so she rolls towards him just so she can see with her own eyes that he is still there.

He's lying on his back, his right arm flung over his abdomen, his other arm hanging over the side of the bed. She's always thought he looks relaxed when he sleeps and she's glad to see that that hasn't changed, despite what else has. The bedclothes are tangled around his legs and as usual he has stolen all of them sometime during the night. Kate slides over towards him, inching closer slowly to avoid waking him. Gently she traces his lips with the slightest brush of her fingertips, she can feel the chapped skin under her fingers, rough and dry, so different from his usual soft, lush lips. She dusts her fingers over his reddened cheeks no longer fire engine red like the first day she saw him. Anyone looking at him now might think he had fallen asleep on the beach rather than spend four days adrift in a dinghy. He murmurs something in his sleep that she can't quiet catch but makes her halt her exploration of him. She watches as he grimaces and twitches then settles back down into a deep sleep without waking. Kate lefts out a soft breath, not ready to admit to herself that she wants these few moments to reacquaint herself with him before he wakes.

She reaches up to run her fingers through his soft brown hair, it's longer and lighter than two months ago. Gently she teases out the sun kissed strands, if she closes her eyes it feels no different than the numerous times she has run her hands through his hair before and she knows that it will soon darken to his normal color.

As he remains in a deep sleep, Kate gets bolder and moves her hand to rest over where his heart lies within his chest. The steady lub-dub beat taps away below her fingers and she lets out a soft gasp as in a blinding flash she is reminded of how the outcome could have been so different and she might never have been able to feel his steady heartbeat, hear his soft snores, touch his warm skin ever again if any one of the alternative endings she had imagined in the last two months had actually occurred. She slips her hand underneath his shirt which has ridden up as he slept to expose his abdomen and lower chest. Lightly she traces the ridges and dips of the healing graze over his left ribs. Stunned she realises that Castle's scar matches her own thoracotomy scar but his is wider, less precise having been created by a bullet rather than a surgeon's scalpel. Kate slides up onto her elbows, keeping her gaze on his face as she moves to crouch over him. Gently she lifts his shirt to expose the bullet wound and she places a soft kiss to the puckered red scar. She could have lost him probably more times than she knows about over the last two months and it kills her that she ever doubted his commitment to them, to their relationship. Placing a final soft kiss on his chapped lips, Kate rolls back onto her side of the bed to gaze at the ceiling. Castle's soft snores at her side only make the guilt swirling around inside worse.

Pushing up off the bed Kate slips from their bed, feeling like she is about to burst from her own skin if she remains there a second longer. The guilt eats away at her that she forgot that just because the evidence told a different story it didn't mean that their story had been the lie. The evidence wasn't the whole story and she feels that maybe if the roles had been reversed Castle wouldn't have been so quick to doubt her. But she knows that she can't take that moment back, no matter how much she wants to change their reunion she can't and that's something she will have to live with. Just as they both will have to live with the possibility that they will never know where he was or what made him disappear.

Slipping on her robe, she stops at the darkened doorway to look back at him. He's still sleeping soundly, his face relaxed, making him look years younger. Kate silently watches him, soaking in the presence of him in her bed again. If she squints in the dim light she could almost imagine that it is just one day since they were asleep together as he believes and not two months as she knows.

Kate didn't bother turning on the lights in his office as she wandered out to the kitchen, familiar with the layout of his loft. Passing by the island bench she switches on the small light above the stove top, giving her enough light to see but not bright enough to reach the bedroom to wake Castle. She pads around the kitchen barefoot as she fills the kettle with water quietly. She hopes a cup of chamomile tea will calm the frantic beating of her heart that has been racing away for two days now, ever since Esposito called to say Castle had been found. A sickening mix of excitement, dread, hope and worry swirling inside of her making her heart race and her head pound.

"Katherine"

She almost drops the cup as her fingers go slack in fright, her quick reflexes catching it before it can hit the floor and wake Castle. She jumps back, her hand to her chest as her already racing heart gallops from her chest.

"God, Martha you scared me" She twirls around to see Castle's mother descend the last step, a silk red and orange kimono swirling around her legs. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I was having trouble sleeping. As are you by the looks of things." Martha slid onto one of the bar stools, her astute gaze not leaving Kate's face.

"Umm..yeah. I don't sleep much, not lately." Kate stammers, revealing too much in her startled state.

"Is Richard asleep?" Martha asked, choosing not to challenge Kate on when she had last slept properly because it was clear that she probably hadn't sleep in eight weeks.

"Yes. He hasn't really stirred since he feel asleep."

"To Richard, he was never away, so he has no reason not to sleep well. But for us, Katherine it will be sometime before we accept that he is back for good."

"It seems surreal. I keep thinking that this is the dream and I'm going to wake up and the nightmare with start again and he'll be gone."

"Oh, Katherine. He's not going to disappear again." Martha leans across to pat Kate's arm as it rests on the bench. She feels the younger woman's hand fist underneath hers and then relax as she accepts the comfort offered.

"We don't know that Martha, because we don't know why he left in the first place and where he has been for two months."

"No we don't but we need to give him time to adjust to the changes that have occurred in his absence. And you need time to adjust to having him back before you push him to try and remember what happened. You heard that psychologist, Richard could be blocking out some devastating trauma that his mind isn't ready to accept and if we push him we may lose the Richard that we have back. The Richard that you and I both love. I'm not willing to let that happen, are you?"

Kate withdraws her hand from Martha's and paces the kitchen as she considers the older woman's words. She needs answers, she needs to know that he didn't leave her voluntarily but she also knows that she isn't willing to risk losing him again.

"No, no I'm not. " She whispers more to convince herself than in response to Martha's statement.

"Then give him the time and space to remember in his own time." Martha steps around the bench to draw Kate into her arms, she is slightly surprised when Kate steps willingly into them. "Just as he gave you space after your shooting." Martha knows she isn't above using the emotion card to get other's to listen to reason, especially when it was her reason.

"You're right, of course Martha" Kate leaned in and returned the hug awkwardly before stepping back to give herself some space.

"Of course I am, Darling" She catches the wry smile that Kate throws at her as she goes back to making her cup of tea. Martha watches as she fills her cup with water and dunks the teabag, taking the time to absorb the changes that have taken place since she last saw her. Kate was thinner than she had been, her hair was shorter and she had a startled look like a doe caught in headlights about her. Martha hoped that a few days back at the loft with Richard might erase the fraught energy that bounced off her in waves these days.

"I like the new hairstyle. It looks lighter, free-er." Martha deciding to settle on a safer subject to break the silence.

"Um, thanks." Kate hesitantly reached up to tug at the short strands, the ends barely reaching her shoulders.

"When did you cut it?" Martha asks.

"Er.. a few weeks ago. It was getting too long. I needed a change. It's…um…simpler now." Kate knew she was rambling but she couldn't tell Rick's mother that she had cut it off in a fit of temper ten days ago when the pre-wedding photos that Castle had insisted that they have taken had arrived in her email inbox. She had been sitting at her desk at the precinct, staring at his picture on their murder board, something that she found herself doing too often when her phone had pinged to notify her she had a new email. Opening the link absently, her heart had stuttered and stopped beating as a candid picture of them taken at the loft just weeks before his disappearance had filled her screen. He had his hand wrapped around her long curls as he held her in his arms. It hadn't even been one of the posed shots the photographer had set up. They had been chatting whilst the photographer changed lenses, Castle had been teasing her about her previous modelling gigs and she had spun away in mock anger. She remembers he tugged her back into him, wrapping his strong arms around her as she laughed up at him, his hands had wandered up to curl in her hair as they were prone to do and the photographer had snapped their picture. Holding the evidence of everything she had lost in her hand that day she had felt her last shred of hope disappear. In anger at Rick, at the world, at herself she had walked out of the precinct that afternoon and walked into the first hair dressers she passed to have those long curls cut off.

"It's been so long since we have seen you." Martha sighed, unable to stop the hurt from lacing her words.

"I'm so sorry Martha. I know I should have come by sooner but I couldn't. I hope you understand but I couldn't be here, in the loft without him." She knew that Martha and Alexis had been hurt when she had refused to come back to the loft when they returned from the Hamptons. How that hurt had bled into anger when she ignored their phone calls and text messages in her downward spiral after Castle's disappearance.

"You are part of this family too, Katherine and for a while I thought I might have lost both my son and you. Don't do that again Katherine or I will hunt you down myself and bring you home." Kate winces slightly at the censure and grief in Martha's clear blue eyes.

"Never" Kate promises quietly, stunned to realise how much she had hurt his mother with her actions.

"Now late night discussions can be very cathartic but they wreak havoc with my skin. On that note I think we should both try and get some sleep. We definitely deserve it." Martha waves her arms dramatically as she starts to sweep from the room.

"Night Martha. Thank-you for…this, for everything" Kate stutters, still shocked by Martha's revelation.

"Goodnight Katherine darling, and thank-you too"

"What for?"

"For coming home Kiddo. Thank-you for coming home."


End file.
